The use of connectors of the stacking type to interconnect circuit boards in parallel relation is well known. As exemplified in FIG. 11, such connectors comprise mated male and female connectors 201 and 211, respectively, mounted on faces of first and second circuit boards 200 and 210, respectively, thereby stacking and electrically connecting the circuit boards together. The heights of electronic parts 205 and 215 mounted on the opposed faces of the boards differ and the requisite gap between the boards 200 and 210 (stack height H) must accommodate such height variations. Clearly such gap may be maximized to accommodate the heights of all possible parts but the space taken up by the stacked circuit boards to attach the boards may then frequently be unnecessarily large, which is unacceptable with the inexorable requirement for compactness of electronic parts. Prior approaches have therefore taught that the heights h1 and h2 of the connectors should differ according to the maximum heights of the electronic parts on the respective circuit boards on which the connectors are mounted enabling the gap to be maintained as small as feasible so that the resulting board assembly was compact.
However, such approach necessitated the manufacture of many kinds of connectors with the same number of and shapes of contacts, differing only in the heights of their insulating housings, increasing both manufacturing, particularly tooling, costs and those costs associated with inventory storage and control which became increasing complex.
In order to ameliorate the problem, prior connectors were made as two separate types of parts: connecting (mating) members, which were mated with complementary connectors, and spacing members which were the only, parts produced as a plurality of different structures and selected according to the required heights. Thus, although only mating members of only a single height were required regardless of the heights of the electronic parts, it was still necessary to manufacture many kinds of spacing parts, and the problems of high manufacturing cost and complexity of management remained.